


Changing partners

by N N West (raynewton)



Category: The Professionals
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-05
Updated: 2013-11-05
Packaged: 2017-12-31 14:46:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1032920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raynewton/pseuds/N%20N%20West
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of Dr Ross's experiments fails.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Changing partners

Changing Partners 

by NN WEST

Let's get one thing straight. I didn't ask for it, I didn't want it, hell I even tried to argue against it. However it would take the wrath of God to make George Cowley rethink a decision - and even then if he was really set on something I'm sure the Old Man could convince God to change his mind.

Re-teaming was not unheard of in CI5, but it was usually the result of some sort of major cock-up by one or both of a pair. This, as the Cow was at pains to assure me when he called me in, was in no way a reflection on my performance or that of my partner. He was gracious enough to explain that Dr Ross had been to a seminar (my heart sank at those words) and had come back filled with the latest startling revelation. Seems it had been decided that regular partnerships were no longer a good idea. We got too attached to our other halves, and this put us at risk of considering our partners before our assignments. So in their infinite wisdom the powers-that-be had decreed that all longstanding teams were to be redeployed.

I was spitting tacks. Very politely - as a rule of thumb I never antagonise my boss - I pointed out that I'd had several long-term partnerships in my career. As a WPC I'd been assigned a beat with a more experienced copper and we'd worked together until I transferred into CID. Once there I'd been partnered several times; each transfer was a career move until I was invited to try for CI5. Once accepted I'd first been partnered with Sue James until she left to get married, and since then I'd worked very successfully with Dave Stark. So why the change?

"Because I say so," was the instant reply, but Cowley did offer me the courtesy of repeating that this was the new policy. Then he called Betty to send in my new partner.

Oh boy. Raymond bloody Doyle. Now I knew I had trouble.

Actually, that wasn't really fair. In many ways I like Ray. We'd even dated for a while, uncomplicated just-for-fun times that ended up with us tumbling into bed giggling and slightly drunk, neither of us wanting or expecting anything further. Once it was over we both moved on with good memories and no regrets. I even enjoyed watching him with his next girl... and his next... and his next... That lad's technique was irresistible, and when we compared notes afterwards those of us he'd dated in CI5 agreed he was one of our better experiences. 

From my point of view as an agent it helped that we both had a background in the police; at different times we'd walked the beat in the same area of London before moving on to the Drug Squad and from there to CI5. Ray was one of the first coppers to realise and accept that a woman could make a positive contribution, that we weren't just there to make the tea, type up the reports and handle the women and kids.

There had been times when we'd been assigned to the same team - the Markham op, for instance, and the surveillance of the Portugese Embassy when the kid with the roller skates nearly wrecked three weeks of concentrated effort. Though come to think of it, I nearly murdered him the night he pulled me out of a date I'd been anticipating for weeks by acting the jealous ex; yet again, to be fair, the target was in the same restaurant.

No, the trouble with Ray Doyle was his partner - former partner, if Cowley stuck to his guns.

Bodie - William Andrew Philip, though lord help you if you called him by anything other than his surname. Anson did call him Willie once, but that was the result of a bet - can, like Russia, be described as a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma. On the surface he's everything I've learned to dislike. Beautiful, and he knows it, he radiates unabashed self-confidence, an innate sense of superiority that makes you want to see him come a cropper just to prove he's not perfect. To hear him talk he's been a gun-runner, merc, Para, SAS - and the weird thing is I don't totally disbelieve him. He has a way of telling the tallest stories with a gleam in his eye that's like a child watching you to see just how far he can go. 

For all his beauty and the charm he can employ when he feels like it I've never fancied Bodie the way I did Ray. Maybe it's the feeling I've always had that the surface coldness goes deeper than most people would like to believe. There's not much that really touches our Master Bodie - but one thing that does is his partnership with Doyle. 

Well, we made the best of the new regime. There was some difficulty in adjusting at first, we all agreed on that. You do get used to a partner's ways of working, and it takes time to adapt to someone new. The hardest thing was the pull of loyalties between old and new partners. You could see it in the rest room and the pub, agents coming together, chatting, drifting apart, pairs reforming. I wanted to work well with Ray, and I think he did with me, but I missed Dave.

Months went by and I followed orders, working on the assignments I was given. I can't say I socialised much with Ray but then I'd met Pete just after the re-teaming and let's just say I was pretty content with my private life. There were successes and failures, a few injuries, one death. Things really came home to me at the funeral - there were two partners grieving there.

Bodie and Ray drifted together at the graveside, and I found myself watching them, wondering how I'd be feeling if Ray had been the one mourning his former partner. I knew I would grieve more for Dave than for Ray, and that I would blame Dave's new partner for not watching his back. For sure, Bodie would blame me if Ray was killed.

Only a few weeks later the date for our annual assessments was announced. It was the full spectrum deal - Ross, Macklin, Crane... 

We'd arranged that Ray would pick me up and drive me down. What he'd forgotten to mention was that we wouldn't be going alone. When I reached the car and bent down to the passenger window I was greeted with a delighted grin from his lordship Bodie himself, sprawled in the front seat as though he had every right to be there. I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of arguing, so with a general greeting I slid into the back seat beside Andrews, the poor unfortunate who'd been teamed with Bodie. A good-hearted unflappable lad, he gave me a wry grin that welcomed me as a fellow second-best, and we passed the journey talking quietly, loftily ignoring the juvenile squabbling from the front seat.

It was a busy week and there was no time for anything other than concentrating on making the best possible scores. I did see Dave and his partner, who had previously worked with Andrews, but had no time for more than the most basic greetings and a promise to catch up with him when we got back to London. To be honest I felt pretty pleased with myself, sure I'd held up well under the various trials thought up for us.

Then just as we'd run the final scenario came a change in the routine. There would be an extra day on the course. When I reported the following morning I was assigned to re-run the previous day's trial - but with Dave. 

Finally we were called in to be given our results. In another departure from the norm the six of us were called in together, Ray and I, Bodie and Andrews, Dave and Rodgers. The assessment team was all there, and it was clear that Ross had been sucking lemons - talk about sour-faced!

Then Cowley dropped his bombshell. We were told that Ross's 'valuable suggestions' had been taken on board, had been tested and - regrettably - found wanting. All the teams had run the course both as we were and with our former partners, and in each case the old pairings had performed better. 

The Minister huffed and puffed, but he couldn't argue with his own beloved statistics; making a virtue out of a necessity he graciously deferred to Cowley's expertise. The reassignments were cancelled.

As I shared a hug with Dave I caught sight of the delighted grins Bodie and Doyle were exchanging, and finally realised why nobody else could ever be Ray's partner.


End file.
